Stupidity Run Amok: Teacher Placed On Leave For Facebook Photo

I’m slowly working my way through the stories that I bookmarked over the weekend… Most of them aren’t blog worthy but this one:

Teacher placed on leave for questionable Facebook posting

BEAVER DAM (WKOW) — Beaver Dam school officials placed a middle school teacher on administrative leave after discovering a photograph of the teacher with a gun on the teacher’s Facebook page.

In the photo, teacher Betsy Ramsdale is training a rifle at the camera.

Ramsdale emailed 27 News in response to our inquiries saying she “removed the photo immediately” and that she is not “interested in any controversy.” Ramsdale did not comment on her motivation for posting the photo.

Schools superintendent Donald Childs told 27 News he is unaware of any sinister intent on the teacher’s part and said the use of the photo “appears to be poor judgment.”

Childs said the Facebook photo was brought to the attention of school district officials by a concerned staff member at Beaver Dam Middle School.

Pisses me off to no end.

Did Ms. Ramsdale do anything illegal or immoral? No! Did she encourage her students to do anything illegal or immoral? No! All she did was post a photograph of herself with a rifle on her personal Facebook page… Something she has constitutionally protected right to do.

The only “sinister intent” I see here is that public officials have chosen to destroy a Ms. Ramsdale’s good name and career because she was publicly identified as a gun owner.

On a related note Nicki Fellenzer at The Liberty Zone points out the story of 17 year old Colorado high school student who is facing expulsion because she had drill team rifles in her car. The rifles — props really are made of plastic, wood and duct tape.

A local school district has suspended a member of the Young Marines youth leadership group after students saw drill props in her vehicle.

Marie Morrow, a 17-year-old senior at Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora, is serving a 10-day suspension. Her punishment could be extended at an expulsion hearing later this month.

Morrow is a student leader in the Douglas County Young Marines, a group dedicated to teaching leadership and life skills.

Cherry Creek Schools suspended Morrow after other students reported seeing guns inside her SUV, which was parked outside school while she was in class.

The school also called police, who seized the three drill team guns made of wood, plastic and duct tape. Police told Morrow to claim them in time for her after-school drill practice off-campus.

School administrators, however, were less understanding. The guns were declared “authentic representations of genuine weapons,” triggering a mandatory expulsion statute in state law.

These brain dead Zero tolerance, Zero intelligence policies have to end… These policies aren’t about protecting students they’re about giving public officials the cover to ruin young woman’s life over what should have been a non-event.